Asses to ashes: why can't farmers use our poop?

Asses to ashes: why can't farmers use our poop?

Posted 04.04.2007 by Dave

With the news that North American farmers might soon endure a fertilizer shortage (also reported here), I'd like to present two completely unrelated numbers:

Farmers in the US use sixty-seven million pounds of nitrogen fertilizer every single day.
Toilet users in the US flush 108 million pounds of poop* down the toilet every single day.

Why do I call those numbers "unrelated"? After all, the poop-educated amongst us will instantly recognize that #2 can replace #1 -- that human waste, when properly composted, makes excellent fertilizer. You know that humanity's place at the top of the food chain means we're supposed to be at the bottom, providing food for bacteria and fertilizer for plants. Can't the poop we flush grow the food we eat? Why endure a fertilizer shortage when we're flushing 108 million pounds of fertilizer down the toilet every single day?

The reason is that it's not just poop and pee arriving at the sewage treatment plant.

If sewers contained only organic waste, there wouldn't be a problem. But in addition to poop and pee, sewers contain the Drano we pour into our bathtubs and the paint we pour into our sinks. In cities with combined rainwater and wastewater sewers, they contain the oil-slicked runoff from roads and melted roadside snow turned brown from the exhaust of the cars driving past. They contain industrial and commercial waste dumped both legally and illegally. And at the sewage treatment plant, all these chemicals and metals and compounds and contaminants are concentrated with our poop and our pee into sludge.

And since it's impossible to say what's in the sludge beyond our poop and pee, it's impossible to know what will happen when all those chemicals and metals and compounds and contaminants are applied to the land.

This is why we can't just ship our sludge to the farmers and let them have at it. As smart and holistic as it would be to reinstate humanity's place at the bottom of the food chain, it may be better to shove it all in a landfill and hope it never comes back.

I say "may" because I'm not convinced one way or the other. On the one hand, you have the EPA's long and detailed rules regulating the use of sludge as fertilizer -- they do allow it, provided you abide by a number of precautions meant to keep the contaminants from moving down into the water table or up into the crops. But on the other hand, you have essays like Abby Rockefeller's seminal Civilization and Sludge, which argues that even with those rules, the contaminants in the sludge are going to outlive the farmers who maintain the land, and that they're going to come back to hurt us eventually.

So even if shortages mean farmers can't get the sixty-seven million pounds of fertilizer they need each day this spring, we can't help them out with the 108 million pounds of fertilizer we'll waste. Until we can figure out how to keep our sewers free from all but poop and pee, those two numbers may have to remain forever unrelated.

* I'll be blogging about how I arrived at the "108 million pounds of poop per day" figure in the next couple of days.

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Show some poop support, or make a poop retort.

armageddonpoopmeister (not verified) -- 04.05.2007

A fertilizer shortage my ass son...I see chicken feces trucks going everywhere ALL DAY LONG at some areas spraying hay fields for hay. I've seen that sludge happen also & been as some protest about that grossness also. Have you ever smelt New York sewage on Virginia soil. I witness first hand for days how this shitty smell thats pungent & gagging hangs in the air & does not dissipate for days. You want to smell a diseased scent for days? Son I hope your with us & sane, since human toxic butt wipes no options unless you want smallpox & aids! Begin the protest... Having stated the above I know that sludge be one thing and an individuals poop another. You go help your fellow farmer should he ask you by taking an individuals dump on his crops. Try not to get exposure & get dead from the cold wind son; do this with a shower curtain wrapped around ya mind you. Bless you son for you help a farmer out Q but you all need to form a co-op to get volunteers to do this who eaten the right healthy materials. I honestly see no no end to cow slops & chicken slops for a long while.

PS.: People only buy the sludge to save money since their cheapskates & not real farmers. But real estate seller jokes who have farms for some reason or another on the side. No actual true farmers interested in wussy sludge. Since nothing actually grows in that sludge like chicken poop which has more fertile. Animals always have more fertile poop sacks...how nature be.

Thunderbox (884) -- 04.05.2007

As usual the problem comes down to expense. It would be far too costly to either have recycling toilets or separate sewers for toilet waste only.

A brief example of how it works in Tibet where I was last year:

17000 feet up, cold dawn, into the squatter for a dump. 2 squatters separated by a 2 foot high wall; old Tibetan guy straining like fuck in No. 1 trap. The back is mostly open due to the low wall, the hole is a 3 foot long by 8 inch slot below which is a long sloping plank leading to the ground 10 feet down.

The icy wind whistles up my ass and stimulates release. A large, well formed turd, pops out and rolls down the plank. At the bottom it is immediately fought over by a short pig and some skanky wild dogs; a hot breakfast.

The other turds which are not eaten are used to try and fertilise the poor soil for vegetable production.

As I left the old fellow was going purple in the face.

Bilgepump (1731) -- 04.06.2007

armegeddon-dumbass-whatever the fuck your name is, did you even read the article? God I have such low tolerance of ignorant stupid fucking know-it-alls....they remind me way too much of me.

Tempora (not verified) -- 04.06.2007

Dave, you mentioned that if sewers contained only organic waste (urine, faeces) there would not be a problem. But what about all the pathogenic bacteria and the disease they could easily result to death, cholera etc...?

Polly (not verified) -- 04.06.2007

Hello! i didnt' get a chance to read the comments yet but I wanted to tell you about a book I recently found at the library called the Humanure Handbook. In it, the author explains how we can bypass the sewer system completely (using compost toilets, no water necessary, except to clean them), safely compost the fertilizer in the backyard, and use it in the garden. I haven't tried this yet (because I rent right now) but someday I plan to. :) Hope you find this interesting! (PS - I don't think I would want to use a composting toilet, but instead just go directly into a composting outhouse in the backyard.) There is one along the bike trail in my town, which is how I found out about it.

Dave (11657) -- 04.06.2007

Tempora -- any pathogens carried in our poop will be killed in the composting process. Note in my essay that I specifically referred to spreading composted sludge, not raw sewage. In municipal sewage plants, sludge is digested in giant tanks by bacteria to degrade the organic matter into something appropriate for fertilizer. And then it's heated to kill off all the bacteria and any pathogens that may remain.

So sludge, if it's been properly composted, would absolutely safe for crops and for the humans who work them -- if it weren't for all those damn contaminants.

Polly: I'm a big fan of Humanure. If you have the real estate to dedicate a portion of your backyard to a compost pile, Humanure is a wonderful way turn your poop into fertilizer. Learn more at Humanure headquarters (or in my book!).

pollinator (2) -- 04.06.2007

Tempora, if we use composting toilets and follow the instructions I read in the book I mentioned, according to the author, there are four phases of composting human manure: The four phases include:
1) the mesophilic phase;
2) the thermophilic phase;
3) the cooling phase; and
4) the curing phase.

according to him, at the end, the compost is completely safe, and he says he uses the fertilizer in his garden w/o any averse consequences.

pollinator (2) -- 04.06.2007

Thanks for the reply Dave! I'll be sure to check out your book and the jenkins publishing site!
thanks again. :P